The Angry Bear

Letters from an American May 4, 2022, Prof. Heather Cox Richardson Overturning Roe v. Wade The uproar over the leaked draft of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade continues. You can tell just how furious the reaction has been by the fact that establishment Republicans are desperately trying to turn the public conversation to the question of who leaked the document. They are baselessly blaming the opposition to the...

Taiwan says new Harpoon missiles will help it crush half of Chinese invasion fleet Taiwan says US$2.37 billion worth of Harpoon missiles would enable it to obliterate half of Chinese invasion armada “TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan’s military on Oct. 27 [2020] stated that the potential sale of US$2.37 billion worth of Harpoon anti-ship missiles will within five years help enable its defenders to wipe out “half of any” People’s Liberation Army...

March JOLTS report: the game of musical chairs in the jobs market intensifies to all-time highs In March, as this morning’s Census Bureau JOLTS report shows, the game of musical job chairs in the jobs market has actually intensified to all-time levels. Specifically, both job openings and quits made all-time highs, and total separations during their entire 20 year history were only higher in March and April 2020. As a refresher, some months ago...

Assuming the Supreme Court issues a sweeping opinion overruling Roe, how will this affect the upcoming midterm elections?  This question is being widely examined, e.g., here, here, here.  My take is that the key issue is whether the personal stories of women (and teenagers) affected by abortion restrictions get told. First, a brief review of public opinion: Most Americans do not want to see Roe overruled.  The split is about 60/30.  People also...

Manufacturing and construction start out the month with positive prints As per usual, the new month starts with updates on manufacturing and construction. The ISM manufacturing index, and especially its new orders subindex, is an important short leading indicator for the production sector. This remained positive, but there has been a definite slowing in the past two months. In April the index declined from 57.1 to 55.4, and the new orders...

As CNN reports . . . “Sen. Susan Collins: Referencing the Supreme Court draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade (Politico) is ‘completely inconsistent’ with what Justice Neil Gorsuch and Justice Brett Kavanaugh ‘said in their hearings and in our meetings in my office.’” Wow, whata surprise! Political appointees to SCOTUS might fib a little, ok more than a little, and probably a lot more to become a SCOTUS Justice. There is such a thing as...

Jacob Seitz, Twitter Users Roast Mitch McConnell After Statement on Roe v. Wade (dailydot.com) Comments from Twitter , , , As one commenter put it bluntly, “Get Bent McConnell.” In the statement, Republican Senate Leader McConnell refers to the leaked majority opinion drafted by Justice Samuel Alito as a “stunning breach” and an “attack on the independence of the Supreme Court.” McConnell said the leak was “yet another escalation in the...

In Texas a large portion of Plant ’22 has already happened. Central Texas corn emergence is already knee high, green, and waiting for the rains to continue this week. Other parts of the country have struggled to get seed in the ground either due to low soil temps, too much precipitation or no rain to speak of. This past week or so as rains and storms, some wreaking tornado havoc, have doused the land in various agriculturally important regions....

RJS, MarketWatch 666 Summary: New Home Sales Reported 8.6% Lower on Record Prices in March, after Prior Months Sales Revised Much Higher The Census report on New Residential Sales for March (pdf) estimated that new single family homes were selling at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 763,000 homes during the month, which was 8.6 percent (±12.9 percent)* below the revised February annual sales rate of 835,000, and 12.6 percent (±11.3 percent)...

First the usual warning – I am both ignorant and intellectually arrogant.  It should be assumed that I don’t know what I am talking about. Stealth technology hides airplanes, drones, and cruise missiles from radar which uses high frequency radio waves.  It does not hide them from radar which uses radio waves of wavelength a meter or more – the thickness of the stealthy covering would have to be similar to that wavelength.  This means that an F-35...